Sunday, January 18, 2009

Here, finally, are Paul's trees. You're seeing them much much smaller than I painted them; in real life, they're 12 inches across. But they're about to get bigger...

Since we built our fireplace years and years ago, Paul's always wanted to have different pictures hanging above it. Something with lots of trees, since we both love them, and paintings we could change with the seasons. But I work on a rather small scale, and this size honestly took me days and days and days. Weeks even. Forests are involved like nobody's business, and it's hard to get down the feeling and the color of the forest without making it look like you're being clubbed with the details. I kept remembering this painting my Grandma had where every single leaf was rendered, and I was trying to do the opposite of that. I would paint in my studio, bring everything down to the dining room and paint more while the kids had a snack, look at it after dinner and splash more paint on it, hate it the next morning and lift sections of paint off of it only to drip on more once it all dried again. I swear that last weekend I was painting WHILE I MADE DINNER. I had it propped up on the counter, would go stir everything the stove, turn around, and paint again. I literally could not stop painting.

I have one small bit left to do on the path, and then I'm scanning it all in. Inspired by the way the poster of Tree/Bird/Heart came out, we're making it into a poster so it will be huuuuuuge! Framed and matted, it'll go over our stone fireplace and we'll be able to see every line and edge of color as we get close up to it.